Loving Leaves- RES

It's hard to let go of the leafy green of summer, so in the Art Room we are doing our best to celebrate their glory before they are gone.

First Grade Leaves

First Grade is making scientific drawings of leaves.  Much like in our Shoe Game, the goal is to learn how to draw what you see in great detail. The students drew on half of their paper, and then played a matching game- all the leaves were up on the white board, and another student tried to match it to the drawing in hand. They offered each other feedback about how to improve the drawings, and then students returned to their seats to redraw the leaf.

Before and after peer feedback

 Second Grade is making clay leaves. I wrote more about them in this post.

Clay leaf

Third Graders have been making reliefs out of leaves, foil, and paint. They have learned to burnish down the thin metal over the leaves, and relieve the surface of paint to let the leaves shine through. Much thanks to blogger Cassie Stephens for this approach to relief.

Leaf Rubbing

These can be done in any arrangement, but a single layer works best

They look wonderful grouped together.  These will be mounted on colorful textured cardboard backgrounds.

Fourth Graders are making leaf prints in between sessions of making and glazing bowls for the coming Harvest Festival in October.  

Negative of image at left, positive at right

These positive and negative leaf and flower print are created by taping acetate to the table. Students roll out ink on the acetate, and then place leaves on the ink. A first paper is placed over the leaves and ink, and the resulting print is the negative you see above at left. The leaves are removed, and a positive print of the leaves is taken, the one at right.

Those tiny dots are individual hydrangea petals

Kindergarteners will be getting outside in Art next week to look at trees to observe their structure, and to talk about what is happening with the seasons. They will be making their own leaf-inspired collages out of construction paper and crayons.